How to become Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer in 2024

Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer Use hand-welding, flame-cutting, hand-soldering, or brazing equipment to weld or join metal components or to fill holes, indentations, or seams of fabricated metal products.

Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer is Also Know as

In different settings, Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer is titled as

  • Assembly Line Brazer
  • Brazer
  • Fabrication Welder
  • Maintenance Welder
  • MIG Welder (Metal Inert Gas Welder)
  • Solderer
  • TIG Welder (Tungsten Inert Gas Welder)
  • Welder
  • Welder Fitter
  • Wirer

Education and Training of Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer

Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer is categorized in Job Zone Two: Some Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer

Some previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is usually needed. For example, a teller would benefit from experience working directly with the public.

Education Required for Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer

These occupations usually require a high school diploma.

Degrees Related to Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer

Training Required for Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer

Employees in these occupations need anywhere from a few months to one year of working with experienced employees. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer in different industries are

What Do Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer do?

  • Weld components in flat, vertical, or overhead positions.
  • Operate safety equipment and use safe work habits.
  • Examine workpieces for defects and measure workpieces with straightedges or templates to ensure conformance with specifications.
  • Recognize, set up, and operate hand and power tools common to the welding trade, such as shielded metal arc and gas metal arc welding equipment.
  • Weld separately or in combination, using aluminum, stainless steel, cast iron, and other alloys.
  • Select and install torches, torch tips, filler rods, and flux, according to welding chart specifications or types and thicknesses of metals.
  • Ignite torches or start power supplies and strike arcs by touching electrodes to metals being welded, completing electrical circuits.
  • Connect and turn regulator valves to activate and adjust gas flow and pressure so that desired flames are obtained.
  • Determine required equipment and welding methods, applying knowledge of metallurgy, geometry, and welding techniques.
  • Monitor the fitting, burning, and welding processes to avoid overheating of parts or warping, shrinking, distortion, or expansion of material.
  • Mark or tag material with proper job number, piece marks, and other identifying marks as required.
  • Chip or grind off excess weld, slag, or spatter, using hand scrapers or power chippers, portable grinders, or arc-cutting equipment.
  • Prepare all material surfaces to be welded, ensuring that there is no loose or thick scale, slag, rust, moisture, grease, or other foreign matter.
  • Preheat workpieces prior to welding or bending, using torches or heating furnaces.
  • Align and clamp workpieces together, using rules, squares, or hand tools, or position items in fixtures, jigs, or vises.
  • Develop templates and models for welding projects, using mathematical calculations based on blueprint information.
  • Guide and direct flames or electrodes on or across workpieces to straighten, bend, melt, or build up metal.
  • Position and secure workpieces, using hoists, cranes, wire, and banding machines or hand tools.
  • Detect faulty operation of equipment or defective materials and notify supervisors.
  • Clean or degrease parts, using wire brushes, portable grinders, or chemical baths.
  • Melt and apply solder along adjoining edges of workpieces to solder joints, using soldering irons, gas torches, or electric-ultrasonic equipment.
  • Grind, cut, buff, or bend edges of workpieces to be joined to ensure snug fit, using power grinders and hand tools.
  • Repair products by dismantling, straightening, reshaping, and reassembling parts, using cutting torches, straightening presses, and hand tools.
  • Check grooves, angles, or gap allowances, using micrometers, calipers, and precision measuring instruments.
  • Operate metal shaping, straightening, and bending machines, such as brakes and shears.
  • Set up and use ladders and scaffolding as necessary to complete work.
  • Hammer out bulges or bends in metal workpieces.
  • Melt and apply solder to fill holes, indentations, or seams of fabricated metal products, using soldering equipment.
  • Use fire suppression methods in industrial emergencies.
  • Analyze engineering drawings, blueprints, specifications, sketches, work orders, and material safety data sheets to plan layout, assembly, and operations.

Qualities of Good Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer

  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.

Tools Used by Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer

  • Adjustable widemouth pliers
  • Adjustable wrenches
  • Air chisels
  • Air drills
  • Air scalers
  • Angle finders
  • Anvils
  • Arc voltage measurement instruments
  • Bandsaws
  • Brakes
  • Brazing equipment
  • Buffers
  • Calipers
  • Comealongs
  • Computerized numerical control CNC programmable welding robot controllers
  • Current converters
  • Cutoff saws
  • Deburring tools
  • Desktop computers
  • Direct current DC sources
  • Dive suits
  • Drill presses
  • Electric overhead hoists
  • Electric pipe threaders
  • Electrode wires
  • Fillet weld gauges
  • Forklifts
  • Gas flow measurement instruments
  • Goggles
  • Grinding machines
  • Hacksaws
  • Hammers
  • Hand chipping hammers
  • Hand clamps
  • Hand pipe threaders
  • Hand shields
  • Heating coils
  • Heliarc welding equipment
  • Hydraulic jacks
  • Hydraulic presses
  • Hydraulic truck lifts
  • Impact wrenches
  • Jibs
  • Jigs
  • Ladders
  • Laser printers
  • Laser welders
  • Lathes
  • Levels
  • Light trucks
  • Metal benders
  • Metal cutting dies
  • Metal cutting taps
  • Metal inert gas MIG welders
  • Metal markers
  • Micrometers
  • Milling machines
  • Mobile welding units
  • Motorized cutting torches
  • Nibblers
  • Notebook computers
  • Overhead cranes
  • Oxyacetylene torches
  • Oxyacetylene welding equipment
  • Pattern cutting torches
  • Personal computers
  • Pinchbars
  • Pipe cutters
  • Plasma welders
  • Portable gas operated arc welders
  • Portable magnetic drill presses
  • Potentiometers
  • Power chippers
  • Power drills
  • Power grinders
  • Power saws
  • Power wire brushes
  • Propane torches
  • Protractors
  • Pry bars
  • Punch presses
  • Punches
  • Ratchets
  • Reciprocating saws
  • Resistance welding equipment
  • Respirator hose masks
  • Rod ovens
  • Rulers
  • Scaffolding
  • Screwdrivers
  • Scribers
  • Self-contained breathing apparatus
  • Semiautomatic flame-cutting equipment
  • Shears
  • Shielded arc welding tools
  • Single-cut mill saw files
  • Slitters
  • Socket wrench sets
  • Soldering irons
  • Soldering jigs
  • Squares
  • Steam cleaning equipment
  • Storage ovens and hot boxes
  • Straightedges
  • Surface contact pyrometers
  • Swing stages
  • Tape measures
  • Temperature gauges
  • Templates
  • Tin snips
  • Tongs
  • Torch tips
  • Tube benders
  • Tungsten inert gas TIG welding equipment
  • Two way radios
  • Ultrasonic soldering equipment
  • Ultrasonic welding equipment
  • Underwater electrode holders
  • Underwater electrodes
  • Underwater welding equipment
  • Unishears
  • Utility knives
  • Vernier calipers
  • Vises
  • Waterproof gloves
  • Welding current measurement instruments
  • Welding electrode holders
  • Welding electrodes
  • Welding guns
  • Welding lenses
  • Welding masks
  • Welding robots
  • Welding shields
  • Welding tips
  • Welding torches
  • Winches
  • Wire brushes
  • Wire cutters
  • Wire feed rate measurement instruments
  • Wirefeed welders
  • Workshop cranes

Technology Skills required for Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazer

  • Enterprise resource planning ERP software
  • EZ Pipe
  • Fred's Tip Cartridge Picker
  • IBM Notes
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft Windows
  • OmniFleet Equipment Maintenance Management
  • Oracle Database
  • Recordkeeping software
  • Scientific Software Group Filter Drain FD
  • Value Analysis